Male Model Arrested for Murder

Renato Seabra, a male model who had recently starred on a Portuguese reality TV show, was charged with second-degree murder after his companion, a celebrity Portuguese television journalist, was found castrated and bludgeoned to death in a New York City hotel. The journalist, 65-year-old Carlos Castro, had arrived in the U.S. in late December in the company of Seabra to see some Broadway shows and spend New Year's Eve in Times Square, according to a family friend.

Credit: Personal Photo

There had been some friction between the two men toward the end of the trip, but nothing to suggest that anything horrible was about to happen, said the family friend, Luis Pires, the editor of the Portuguese language newspaper Luso-Americano. "I think that they were a little bit upset with each other, for jealousy reasons," Pires told The Associated Press.

Credit: Personal Photo

Friends in New York said Castro and Seabra were a couple. But Seabra's mother told Portugal's TVIndependente television network that her son "was not Carlos Castro's lover." According to CBS affiliate WCBS, the pair did some sightseeing in the city. But when it was time to meet Pires' daughter for dinner Friday night, Seabra suddenly emerged in the lobby of the InterContinental New York Times Square hotel acting strangely, Pires said. "He told my daughter, 'Carlos will never leave the hotel again,'" Pires said.

Credit: Personal Photo

He said his daughter, distraught, fetched a hotel manager. Security guards opened the door to the room and found the body at about 7 p.m. By then, Seabra had left the hotel but was detained by police hours later after he sought care at St. Luke's Roosevelt Hospital, not far from the hotel. He was being evaluated Saturday at Bellevue Hospital Center, across town.

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Police said Castro suffered serious head trauma. The medical examiner's office will determine the cause of death. Seabra was a contestant last year on a Portuguese TV show called "A Procura Do Sonho," or "Pursuit of a Dream," which hunts for modeling talent. He didn't win the show but did get a modeling contract with an agency founded by fashion designer Fatima Lopes, who developed the show and was a judge on it.

Credit: AP Photo, file

Renato Seabra, a male model who had recently starred on a Portuguese reality TV show, was charged with second-degree murder after his companion, a celebrity Portuguese television journalist, was found castrated and bludgeoned to death in a New York City hotel. The journalist, 65-year-old Carlos Castro, had arrived in the U.S. in late December in the company of Seabra to see some Broadway shows and spend New Year's Eve in Times Square, according to a family friend.

Credit: AP Photo, file

There had been some friction between the two men toward the end of the trip, but nothing to suggest that anything horrible was about to happen, said the family friend, Luis Pires, the editor of the Portuguese language newspaper Luso-Americano. "I think that they were a little bit upset with each other, for jealousy reasons," Pires told The Associated Press.